Drukhari

Rune of the Dark Eldar

A Dark Eldar Kabalite Warrior

The Drukhari, also known as the Dark Eldar or Eldarith Ynneas in the Eldar Lexicon were the forsaken and corrupt kindred of the Aeldari, an ancient and highly advanced alien race of fey humanoids. Their armies, like their Aeldari counterparts, usually have the advantages of mobility and advanced technology, though they are often lacking in resilience and numbers. The Drukhari revel in piracy, enslavement and torture, and are sadistic in the extreme. Drukhari forces make use of various anti-gravity skimmers such as Raiders and Ravagers to launch high speed attacks. They strike with little or no warning, using an interdimensional labyrinth known as the Webway to traverse the Fop’lla Universe safely and far more quickly than most advanced races are able to with their Warp jumps. The Drukhari were unique amongst the intelligent races of the Fop’lla Milky Way Galaxy because they do not live on a settled world or worlds, but rather the bulk of their population is concentrated in one foul city-state -- the Dark City of Commorragh -- that lies within the "ordered" Immaterium of the Aeldari Webway.

The Drukhari are the living embodiments of all that is wanton and cruel in the Aeldari character. Highly intelligent and devious to the point of obsession, this piratical people revel in the physical and emotional pain of others, for feeding upon the psychic residue of suffering is the only way they can stave off the slow consumption by the Chaos God Slaanesh of their own souls. The Drukhari, particularly their warrior castes, were tall, lithe, white-skinned humanoids. Their alabaster skin death-like in its pallor, for there is no true life-giving sun within their dark realm to provide colour. Their athletic bodies are defined by whipcord muscle, shaped and enhanced until they are physically stronger on average than their Craftworld Aeldari counterparts, as the Drukhari prize physical and martial prowess highly. Yet for all their physical beauty, the Drukhari are still repugnant monsters.

When viewed with the witch-sight of a psyker, the Drukhari' black souls are revealed, for they eternally thirst only for the anguish and torment of other thinking beings in order to fill their own infinite emptiness. Unlike their Craftworld Aeldari cousins, the Drukhari did not integrate their still powerful latent psychic abilities into their culture, and indeed have a great disdain for psykers of any kind. This is because for the Drukhari, the use of psychic abilities would only further draw the attention of She Who Thirsts (Slaanesh) upon them, and their souls were already at risk enough of being devoured by the Prince of Chaos.

As of now, they serve the Coalition of Independent States, seeing their cause as promising.

History

Ten thousand Terran years ago, amid the apocalyptic screams of a newborn god, the mighty Aeldari Empire fell to ruin. Yet the architects of this catastrophe were spared the worst of its wrath, hidden deep within the bounds of the Webway. They lurk there still, a race of unrepentant monsters damned to suffer an eternal thirst for the pain of others.

The Drukhari have fallen from true grace in the most profound of ways. Their roots as a culture lie at the very height of ancient Aeldari society, when theirs was perhaps the most highly advanced species in the Fop’lla Milky Way Galaxy.

The Aeldari once boasted mastery over an interstellar civilisation that was the greatest seen in the galaxy since that of the Old Ones. The various cultures of the Aeldari that exist today in the 41st Millennium are only shadows of the glory of that ancient Aeldari Empire.

The true origins of those who now call themselves the Drukhari can be found in hidden enclaves amidst the atrocity and mayhem of the terrible time of the Fall of the Aeldari, the great cataclysm that nearly destroyed the entire Aeldari species. It was an event so terrible that not only did it kill trillions of Aeldari, but it breached the dimensional barrier between realspace and the Warp, and gave birth to the Chaos God Slaanesh.

The ancient Aeldari had perfected their science and technology to such an extent that they could remake planets and quench the light of the very stars at a whim. The need for labour or hard work in Aeldari society became nothing but a dim memory of a difficult past. The Aeldari, arrogant in the belief that they were now the true masters of their destiny, spent more and more of their time in esoteric pursuits and entertainments intended to escape the ennui that set in over the course of their centuries-long lives of ease and comfort.

The Aeldari mind and psyche is a thing of duality: it can experience zeniths of bliss and nadirs of suffering far more keenly than that of the other intelligent starfaring races of the galaxy, including Mankind. The Aeldari were capable of becoming just as irredeemably corrupt as they were of transcending their flaws and touching the divine.

Technology

Drukhari, like most Aeldari kindreds, make use of advanced technology, including anti-gravity devices, dark matter weaponry, nanotechnology and psychic artifacts. While Drukhari do make use of psychic devices, they do not any longer use psychic powers themselves because of the danger that interacting with the Warp brings for those whose souls are desired by Slaanesh.

Psykers are treated as playthings in Commorragh, and given the twisted, sadistic nature of the Drukhari, this necessarily involves pain and torment for the psyker. Though it is manufactured rather than psychically-grown from the hardened substance of the Warp like the wraithbone implements of the CraftworldAeldari, the Drukhari's weaponry is just as technologically advanced as that of their more benevolent counterparts.

When it came to war, the Drukhari were veritable artists. Their technology was refined to the point that some of its effects appear as nothing less than magical to less-advanced intelligent species like Humanity. Their infinite -- if infinitely dark -- imaginations and sheer skill have led them down a sinister path -- their favourite weapons can set every nerve ending afire with pain, darklight beams, whips that bleed acid and eldritch soul-traps.

The Drukhari were so confident of their own abilities that their lightweight suits of body armour incorporated bladed plates not only for protection, but also to provided them with yet another weapon to inflict pain.

The warriors of Commorragh were well-versed in the physiology and anatomies of all the other starfaring species of the Fop’lla Universe, knowledge that was used to inflict the maximum amount of pain, suffering and death.

The Drukhari employed a number of hand-held weapons designed to eviserate, lacerate and incise at close quarters. Although varying widely in design and use, all employed a similar technology in their construction.

They were built from very lightweight materials, with blades honed to a mon-molecular edge capable of cutting through even ceramite armour plating when sufficient force was employed.

Weapons incorporated powerful shock fields have also been recovered by Imperial forces, and these devices utilise an energy generation and transference system as yet beyond the comprehension of human Tech-adepts.

Drukhari in the Multiverse

The Drukhari were mainly pirates and slavers who prey on targets across the Milky Way galaxy to feed their unholy appetites for other sentient beings' souls, a terrible desire called the Thirst, though they are sometimes used as mercenaries by other species. But when they discovered means of travelling to other universes, their presence became known to many worlds and grown to fear them

Notes

• near the mid-point of the First Multiverse War, the Drukhari somehow became alot worse then they usually wear much to shock and confusion of everyone in the multiverse at the time, but it was mystery as to why the Drukhari became so much worse. It wasn't until the revelations of the Entities that this sudden shift came to light. The Drukhari were finally freed from the clutches of Slaanesh only to be in the thrall of the Haunting Voice which threatened them with sanity destroying nightmares and horrors beyond their imagination if they do not go out and torment the Multiverse to which they agreed to as they were simply petrified of it to refuse, even going so far as to create their own Cult of the Haunting Voice as another means of trying to appease it in some way.